Time turns into the way. I’ve to sit, for blood pressure to stabilize. Having learned doing nothing, I navigate the nurse’s understanding, later the doctor’s need for answers, saying I drank three cups of coffee before the taxi delivered my trust here. Figures still before me, soundless after the year of uncertainty. Seated, I travel, with my eyes, across vulnerable rows, ideas of hope chaired. We hold our consent’s forms, signatures affixed to the universal promise. We share the better day meeting us halfway. Even if we limp, even if in wheelchairs we move without moving, we, touched, touch without touching. We reclaim birthrights to live and relive, restock memories, taking turns together. Childhoods shall be restored, on their own terms, elders remaster golden years that gather us all. Those who turn fields fallow, those who harvest and turn over blessings to community pantries, shall revisit values of sweat and tears, the sun recognizing our smiles, the Earth singing footsteps back into chorus. Love jabbed into my shoulder shall flow.
Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, The Philippines. His poetry and fiction are forthcoming in The Cape Rock and Poetry Salzburg Review, and have appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies, including Chiron Review, Thin Air, The Lyric, The McNeese Review, and The Anglican Theological Review. His poetry collections include, “Songs from My Mind’s Tree” and “Multiverse” (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York), “50 Acrostic Poems,” (Cyberwit, India), “In the Donald’s Time” (Poetic Justice Books and Art, Florida), and “Pan’s Saxophone” (Weasel Press, Texas).
Featured Artwork: Smokehouse Watercolor Daoud Naouri, originally from Tangier, lives in Northern California. His work revolves around the frailty of humans and the beauty of nature.